Like so many of his friends and colleagues across the world, we were shocked and saddened to hear of the death of Caspar Bowden, the British privacy activist and co-founder of the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR).

Among a community filled with perceptive advocates for a better future, Caspar Bowden stood out as one of the most prescient and the most determined. With a far-reaching knowledge of both policy and technology, he was frequently years ahead of his contemporaries in identifying upcoming issues, and never hesitated to transform his own life and career to better meet those challenges.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation welcomes the appointment of Mr. Joseph Cannataci as the first-ever UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy. The President of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) appointed Mr. Cannataci last week following the March 2015 HRC resolution that called to appoint a new Special Rapporteur on the Right to Privacy for a period of three years.

The digital security community has been reacting this week to leaked documents from italian surveillance company Hacking Team. The documents, which include lists of contracts and sales pitches to some of the worst authoritarian regimes and countries with weak democracies, show a global industry of sales to states of software that can invade and spy on personal computers and mobile devices almost without limit. Buried in that data was information that reveals a disturbing trade in such technology across Latin America. EFF, Derechos Digitales, Fundacion Karisma, R3D and our colleagues in the region have issued a statement to Latin American governments, demanding more transparency on how Latin American states are using -- or misusing -- spyware like that sold by Hacking Team.